


Clubhouse

by toffeecape



Series: Sandwich 'verse [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Fisting, Anal Sex, Background Femslash, Background Het, Background Poly, Bottom Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Comfort Food, Comfort No Hurt, Crack, Crying, Developing Friendships, Dirty Talk, Enemas, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Food Issues, Food Porn, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, POV Bucky Barnes, Revenge, Rimming, Smut, Some Plot, Somnophilia, Synesthesia, Therapy, Top Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 08:10:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2644517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toffeecape/pseuds/toffeecape
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Explosions are the best revenge, but you'll get more mileage out of living well: a day in the life of Bucky Barnes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clubhouse

**Author's Note:**

> Start your day off right, with a hearty bowl of Steve and Bucky having barely-conscious, sleepy sex! Or don't, if that sort of thing is not your cup of tea, and instead scroll to the first scene break.

Most guys were familiar with the experience of waking up to find they'd been rubbing their hardon against their bed partner in their sleep, or being shoved awake by said bed partner in annoyance for the same. It was normal.

Steve, of course, didn't know normal when it punched him in the face, which was why he needed Bucky around to help him punch it back. Bucky used that to explain a lot of things about Steve, including the way he sometimes woke Bucky up by rubbing his _butt_ against Bucky in his sleep. Now was one of those times. Bucky's crotch was being snuggled, no other word for it, _snuggled_ by the two roundest, tightest little asscheeks ever found on a built guy over six feet. Bucky was the farthest thing possible from annoyed to wake up this way, at - he squinted at the wall clock - 0300 or any other time.

He cupped Steve's ass in his palms, stroking the soft, velvety skin. He smelled peaches; sometimes his arm's scrambled neural connections were less than subtle. It wasn’t all that distracting after so long (although he was careful where he ate actual peaches now). Steve ground against him clumsily, mumbling what could have been either “Bucky” or “fuck me.” His baby was still fast asleep if it was the latter; Bucky had to get Steve pretty worked up to talk dirty at all when he was awake.

Bucky himself had no such hangup, to put it mildly. “You need something, sweetheart?” he whispered, slipping his right hand in between Steve’s cheeks. He’d wiped Steve down last night after they finished, but a little more lube must have worked its way out, because Steve’s opening was slick, and - he rubbed the little ring of muscle with a fingertip - yeah, wow, still soft.

That wasn't the only thing that was soft; Bucky rocked his limp dick sorrowfully against Steve's phenomenal ass, and it barely twitched. "You wrung me out so good, babe, I got nothin'," he rumbled, feeling hot just remembering what they got up to a few hours ago. Bucky had managed to go off twice, which was an Event for him, unlike Mr. Pop-Pop-Pop over here. He kneaded Steve's ass (peaches again) and kissed the back of his neck. "Stevie, love, wake up. Just a bit, okay?"

"Hnn?"

"There you are." Still using his right hand to toy with Steve's asshole, Bucky reached around with his left and stroked Steve's cock. The feel of the springy, hard flesh instantly made him smell hot cotton, like bedsheets fresh off the line, or shirts under an iron. "You want me to get you off, baby?"

"Uhn, Bucky." Steve squirmed sleepily in Bucky's hands, warm and pliant, acres of gorgeous skin flush against Bucky's own. Bucky shivered with the goodness of it, nipped at Steve's shoulder blade and said, low, "You do gotta say it, though. Want me to keep going?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Good enough." He tugged and shoved until Steve was lying on his back, and shuffled down between Steve's spread legs. "Gonna suck you right back to sleep, darlin'. No cleanup necessary."

He licked at Steve's cock, layering over the phantom cotton smell (weird but not unpleasant) with real smells and tastes of salt and sex-musk. Steve muttered, abruptly, "Protein shake."

"Heh! Breakfast of champions, doll." He slurped Steve's cock into his mouth, and slipped his finger in Steve's ass up to the second knuckle. Steve gave a gusty sigh and a half-hearted thrust of his hips.

Bucky used his legendary assassin powers of coordination to simultaneously suckle the head and jack the base of Steve's cock, while also twisting his finger deep in Steve's ass. Steve was blood-hot inside, clinging with just barely enough leftover slick, delicious little flutters in his muscles. His hums and moans were still bleary with drowsiness. Bucky kept his rhythm leisurely, and Steve remained boneless and damp and sweetly responsive, right through climaxing with a loud sigh and a gentle quiver.

Bucky held him lightly in his mouth while he removed his finger. Steve didn't re-harden, and in fact started snoring like a buzzsaw as soon as Bucky released him. Bucky rested his head on Steve's hip until he stopped grinning like a loon, then got up. There was no way he was getting back to sleep after that, and he was hungry besides.

* * *

 

"Evening, Barnes."

"Morning, Stark."

Tony looked at the wall. "Huh. So it is." DUM-E and U whirred at Bucky, but did not turn away from watching whatever Tony was doing. Butterfingers 'waved', flinging a screwdriver straight up in the process. It buried itself in the ceiling.

"They really need better gripping surfaces," Bucky pointed out.

"They need better decision trees, is what they need. How hard is it to put down what you're holding before doing the next thing?" Tony waved his arms as he spoke; the travel mug in his hand flung a stream of hot coffee in an arc around his head. "Ow!"

Bucky cracked up enroute to the kitchenette.

"Yeah, laugh it up. No coffee for you!"

"Says the man who installed an espresso machine in my apartment," retorted Bucky as he dug into the fridge for smoothie ingredients. They had a blender upstairs, but it was loud.

"Which you use to copy those syrupy monstrosities from the shops. I know you know that's not coffee, old man."

"Old enough to remember when coffee wasn't something you drank for pleasure. And I'm not copying them; I use way more heavy cream." Tony made gagging noises. Bucky decided he was in the mood to experiment, and added oranges, carrots, and a small chunk of ginger root to the stuff already in the blender. That sounded like a good combination.

It sounded good, but it wasn't. It was soapy and terrible. Bucky doctored the smoothie as much as he could with lemon and honey, then sucked it down fast. As he finished, he noticed Tony watching with an odd expression on his face.

"What?" Bucky said defensively, turning and rinsing the canister in the sink. "Time was, this is more fruits and vegetables than I'd see in a week. Not gonna waste it just because it didn't turn out."

"Hmm? Oh, no, makes sense, you and Cap are exactly the same that way. No, I was just noticing that your left shoulder is still the same size as your right."

Bucky rolled his shoulders, for once hearing the soft clicks as his plating rearranged itself. "Guess so." God, what a shitshow it would've been if the chassis _hadn't_ accommodated the muscle mass he added upon returning to New York. He repressed a shudder, and quickly asked, "What are you working on?"

Tony glanced at the pile of circuits behind him. "Don't know yet. More working 'cause I can't sleep than can't sleep 'cause I'm working." There were dark circles under his eyes. Bucky recalled that Colonel Rhodes left the country on operations two days ago, and Miss Potts wasn’t due back from her business trip until later this morning.

He waved his left arm. "Wanna help me remove more solder?"

Tony's face lit up. " _Yes_."

They'd tried a few setups since Bucky finally nerved himself up to ask Tony for a close exam of his arm (which request Tony pretty much creamed himself over on the spot). So far the best seemed to be sitting on the floor in front of a large mirror, Tony running the Stark family motormouth at top speed, both of them scraping away at the corroded bits of electronic debris soldered between the outer plating and inner workings of Bucky's arm.

"It's a goddamn crime, I tell you," Tony lamented.

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Pretty much everything that happened to me is literally a crime, Tony."

"A travesty, then. Why would you take good tech, and gum it up with bad tech?"

"I think they wanted to put their mark on it."

"When I gave Rhodey the War Machine armor, the Air Force instantly stuck a bunch of shitty guns all over it. I only got him to lose about half."

"There you go."

"It's not just evil; it's bad design." Tony fell silent as he dislodged a particularly stubborn chunk, then said, "Did you mean to imply that thing you just implied?"

Tony once told Steve that everything special about him came out of a bottle. He also invited Bucky to live in his home sight unseen, when Bucky was busy shooting people in the face and setting their stuff on fire. Bucky took a deep breath and said, "Yes."

"It's not HYDRA tech at all, is it." Tony's voice was barely audible.

"No."

"Do you know whose it is?"

"Oh yes." Bucky bared his teeth. "Mine, now."

"I completely agree, and vigorously approve," Tony told him. "I'm also feeling the urge to swap secrets, balance things out." Tony fidgeted, then said in a rush, "I found Dr. Elizabeth Ross."

"Am I supposed to know who that is?"

"She's a cellular biologist-"

"Wait, is this like your weird crush on Dr. Foster?"

"What weird- well, okay. Yes and no. She's also under-published, but it's not because she doesn't bother; she's in hiding from her father, the shitsack who arranged the clusterfuck that produced the Hulk. She and Bruce used to date."

Now Bucky was really confused. "I thought you wanted to add Bruce to your whole free-love schtick you've got happening?"

"How did you-? Never mind. Yes, I would in a heartbeat, I'm a more-is-more kinda guy. But I think Bruce is like _your_ guy: lets some people close, but only his favorite person closer."

"You think she's it for him, or was." Bucky wasn't quite 'it' for Steve - there could've been Agent Carter, too, maybe - but he figured Tony didn't need the extra wrinkle in his twisty brain. Besides, that was Steve's to talk about.

"I don't know if I should contact her or not, for her sake or Bruce's - it's all a mess."

"You're a mess. Aha!" Bucky pointed at the exposed section of his own armpit.

"What? Oh, hey, the central line!"

"Possibly the dumbest addition ever. I'd have needed to be tranqed to the gills already just for them to access it, at which point whaddya need another line for? I don't think it got used even once." Bucky glared at the little injection port, and the slender, barely-visible tubing that scans showed terminated in his subclavian vein. Tony had a point: bad design _was_ offensive.

"You want to pull it out?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, but go slow. If you feel resistance, _stop_. The last thing we want is to break it. Super-healing or no, foreign objects in the heart are undesirable, to put it mildly." Tony rubbed his sternum unconsciously.

"Right." Bucky removed the last of the attachment points, and started pulling ever so gently on the port. It slid free smoothly, especially after the first couple of inches of clean tubing gave way to tubing covered in blood and pus.

"Oh, gross," muttered Tony.

"Gyahhh," said Bucky, as some deep nerve in his arm was tripped, and he smelled cordite and the discharge from HYDRA's blue ammo: the day he fell from the train. He pulled the last of the line clear and pitched it into the trash with a grimace. He shook out his arm as well, metal filings falling from the two areas where his plating was slid aside.

"You know, I have a nifty little vacuum for that."

"It's symbolic or some shit," Bucky said.

"Let me vacuum before you close up anyway. And maybe a little disinfectant there, unless you want to smell like a trip to the dentist."

Bucky sighed and stuck out his arm while Tony gave him a quick once-over with the small, flexible vacuum and a soaked q-tip, then slid his plates back into place.

"Steve'll be up soon," he said. "Thanks for the help."

"Anytime." Tony gazed fondly at Bucky's arm in a way that was only mildly objectifying.

"As for Dr. Ross." Tony perked up. "Is she safe? From her dad."

"Yeah."

"Then it's none of my business. Or yours." Tony drooped and waved him off.

* * *

 

Back upstairs, it was still quiet in their apartment. The bedroom was dark and warm and reeked of sex. Bucky slipped out of his clothes and into bed, where Steve was sprawled on his stomach, taking up most of the mattress. Bucky draped himself over Steve's back and pulled the blankets over them both, luxuriating in the heat.

He was just starting to consider getting back up again for more food when Steve mumbled, "Did you blow me earlier, or did I dream that?"

Bucky grinned. "All me, baby." He rolled his hips against Steve's ass. "You ready to go again? 'Cause I sure am."

Steve hummed and spread his legs for Bucky, who nearly swallowed his tongue. "God, you're so fuckin' sexy." He snatched the lube off the nightstand.

"I'm still open, I think," Steve said softly. "Just grease up and push in, Buck. Wanna feel you." He tilted his hips, raising his perfect ass up like an offering, and Bucky's eyes crossed. In no time at all he was slick and sinking into Steve, feeling Steve's ass part eagerly around his dick, almost swallowing him down. Bucky laid on top of Steve, curling his arms around Steve's where they were pillowing his forehead, thrusting shallowly but joined deep, so deep. He kissed the nape of Steve's neck. "Babydoll," he whispered, "you take it so good. Your little hole just needs it so much, isn't that right?"

"God! Bucky," Steve whimpered. Bucky was pressed so close he could feel the heat of Steve's blush on his skin.

"I know it, love, I can feel it in the way you open up for me just as sweet as anything, the way your pretty cock gets all wet as soon as I touch you back here. You're leaking all over the sheets right now, aren't you?" Bucky groaned as Steve squeezed around him, moved with him as Steve humped into the mattress. "Are you? Are you making a mess, baby?"

"Yeah," Steve breathed, pushing back hard into Bucky's slow thrusts, "oh, _oh_ Bucky, you feel so good, I'm gonna- _hnngh_!" He tensed and came with almost no warning at all, tightening in rhythmic clenches. When they eased off, he went right back to fucking himself on Bucky, under Bucky, their hollow under the blankets growing humid with sweat.

"Unbelievable," Bucky murmured in delight, interlacing his fingers with Steve's, "you just can't get enough, can you, doll?" His hips were moving with more urgency, and the dirty talk coming out of him was escaping his voluntary direction. "I oughta - I oughta get you something to wear, keep you filled up all the time." Steve gasped, his rhythm stuttering. "Yeah, would you like that, babe?" Bucky ground his forehead into the back of Steve's neck, embarrassed but unable to stop. "Always with something big and hard to squeeze on, keeping you stretched and ready for me, just shove in anytime, anywhere, oh Stevie, keep you _fucked_." Jesus, only for Steve would he let this crazy shit loose in the open air. He angled himself to get more contact with Steve's prostate, needing to move this along before he died of mortified arousal.

Luckily Steve went just about as nuts for Bucky's ridiculous voice as he did for something up his ass. It only took a few hard, on-target thrusts before Steve was shuddering out a second orgasm, moaning wantonly. Bucky crushed him to his chest and emptied himself into the hot clutch of Steve's body.

They lay like that for awhile, Bucky plastered against Steve's back like some boneless marine animal washed up on the beach. The sheets over them were damp. The sheets under them were undoubtedly _soaked_. They were going to have to do laundry again.

"I don't really," Bucky mumbled against Steve's neck, "you know that, right?"

"Don't really what?"

"Don't really wanna make you wear a - a plug, or whatever, all the time. Not for real." When he wasn't thinking with his dick, that sounded uncomfortable and gross.

Steve laughed. "Geez, Buck, I know that! Just like I know you don't _really_ wanna keep me tied to the bed for the rest of my life, or fuck me in the middle of Times Square, or eat my ass in a sandwich seven meals a day."

Bucky's cheeks burned and he moaned unhappily. "No fair bringing that shit up when I ain't about to come."

"You started it," Steve said reasonably, and then his voice softened. "But if it makes you feel any better, it gets me so hot when you say those things, right then I feel like I'd let you."

" _Fuck_." Bucky tightened his arms around Steve as his dick twitched pathetically. Steve squirmed in his grasp, and he slipped out of Steve's ass. Steve made a mildly disgusted noise; Bucky's come must have slid down his balls to join the cooling, congealing mess on the bed.

"I need a shower in the worst way," Steve announced. Bucky groaned and rolled off him, then heaved himself to his feet and stripped the bed before following Steve into the shower.

Steve washed differently based on whether he needed a final round or not. Today he was perfunctory, neither lingering on himself nor finding reasons for them to wash each other; he didn't need Bucky to bring him off again. _Later_ , he promised the slippery, foamy curves of Steve's - everything.

Steve caught him looking. "See anything you like?" he teased with a bright smile, so beautiful Bucky's breath caught. "You look like you want to eat me up."

"I do," he growled, kissing Steve firmly, pulling him flush so his slim hips were bracketed by Bucky's solid ones, spent cocks nestled together. "Can't get enough of you, and that _ain't_ just sex-talk."

Steve kissed him back, then shoved lightly at Bucky's shoulders. "Gonna be less of me if I don't get some breakfast into me soon." The growl of his stomach accentuated his point.

When they'd put away enough eggs and toast that they were eating at a normal rate instead of wolfing them down, Steve asked, "Want to get truck lunch after running?" The advantage of getting lunch from the food trucks was they didn't have to shower first; they could just walk around in the sunshine, stinking to high heaven and stuffing their faces. Bucky liked truck lunch, but-

"Can't. Tuesday."

Steve blinked. Bucky congratulated himself on having made Steve forget what day it was. "Right. Which also means we're meeting Thor, Dr. Foster, and Miss Lewis for dinner."

"Just let me know where."

"Will do."

They ran in comfortable silence, and parted ways outside the Tower with a cursory peck that was nonetheless thrilling to Bucky in its domesticity. Never in a million years would he have expected to get to kiss Steve in public, easy as a couple of old marrieds. Well. They had the old part down.

* * *

 

Clint did good when he picked the diner. It was a short walk from the VA, the reflective coating on the windows rendered them cheap one-way mirrors, and there were enough real mirrors inside that there was no seat without a view of the doors. The food seemed expensive to Bucky, but no more than anywhere else, and the coffee was hot, and so strong it could probably be used to clean a stove. Best of all, it was virtually deserted until noon; at eleven, they had the run of the place.

When a half-dozen people had settled around the table and ordered lunch (new faces being quietly informed that everything went on a tab), Clint cleared his throat.

"Sam can't be here today, on account of not being able to get out of a staff meeting for a group that the VA doesn't actually know he's running. We're," he indicated himself and Bucky, "buddies of Sam's, so he gave us a, uh, list." He shook out a scribbled sheet of paper. "'Introductions.' Right. Hi, new people, and welcome to Tuesday lunch."

"Also known as Assholes Anonymous," interjected Bucky. A couple of people snorted.

Clint glared daggers at him, but sounded less nervous as he continued. "I'm Clint, and I got mind-controlled by magic." Unsubtly, he shoved Bucky.

"You can call me Jim. Evil science," said Bucky shortly. The 'evil' qualifier was important to him; he had some good pals now who were mad scientists.

They went around the table, victims of psychics, aliens, a wannabe dictator (Bucky had enjoyed bringing that little pissant in), more evil science, 'I don't fucking know', and 'I don't want to talk about it.' Bucky recognized the last woman from that whole mess two weeks ago, with the _thing_ growing in the sewers; he wouldn't want to talk about it either.

The conversation stopped and started awkwardly without Sam there to facilitate. The largest and most comfortable pause happened when the food arrived. Bucky dug in; this place made a killer Reuben.

"I'm just so angry," said one girl suddenly. "I feel like - like a kettle boiling over, like I want to hiss and spit at everyone. I can't even get revenge." The psychic who fucked with her had fucked off without a trace.

Heads nodded around the table. "None of us can," someone muttered. Clint glanced at Bucky, just a flick of the eyes.

"I did," Bucky admitted. Everyone turned to him. 'Jim' almost never spoke up. "To an extent."

"What was that like?"

"It helped, not gonna lie. But it didn't fix everything, and it didn't undo anything."

"Jesus, Jim, you're not gonna give us that 'living well is the best revenge' horseshit, are you?"

"Nah. Explosions are definitely the _best_ revenge." Bucky dragged a fry through a streak of ketchup. "But I'd say I'm getting a lot more _mileage_ out of living well, you know? I can only kill someone once, but I can nail my fella indefinitely."

"Can and do," Clint griped from where his face was buried in his hands. Because he was a disaster, Natasha had forced him to lay low at Steve and Bucky's more than once, and they didn't always remember they had a guest.

"Fuck, put that on a goddamn motivational poster," laughed a guy who'd found a web of transmitters in his bike helmet. "'Explosions are the best revenge, but you'll get more mileage out of living well.'"

The group turned to discussing other ways of living well, and managed to take up the rest of the hour without any more dead air. They left one by one as the lunch rush came in, until it was just Bucky and Clint again.

"Whatever Sam gets paid, it's not enough," Clint observed.

"No argument here. But we don't pay him at all, except in lunch. Speaking of, you wanna stick around? He's coming in soon, and I'm only half full." Bucky fixed himself another cup of triple-cream, triple-sugar coffee.

"That's because you have the metabolism of a freight train, buddy. Most of us need breaks from shovelling it in."

"Fair enough. Catch you later. And Clint?" Bucky added just as Clint got up. "Nice work today."

Clint beat a hasty retreat rather than come up with a reply to that, but he looked pleased.

Sam came in a few minutes later, looking irritated. "There's a special place in hell for people who call meetings but can't organize them," he grumbled, "and that place is a meeting that never ends. Now my whole damn day is thrown off."

"You'll get half your office hour still," said Bucky. "I ordered you a tuna melt ten minutes ago."

"You are a good person, and I value our friendship," Sam told him, quoting directly off the list of affirmations he passed out all the time.

"Actually I ordered four tuna melts. But one is for you." Said tuna melts arrived just then.

"Still." Sam devoted himself to his food for a while, then cleared his throat and asked, "How'd it go?"

"Oh, I think we could replace you with one of those little Falcon dolls and we'd do all right." Bucky mimed a small flapping figure with two pieces of crust, then said seriously, "We talked about revenge and planned a motivational poster with an explosion on it. You have to find a way to get out of those meetings."

"They're once every two months. So long as people show up the next week, you and Clint are doing fine pinch-hitting for me." Sam snatched a pickle off Bucky's plate. Bucky let him, because he had three and Sam only had one.

* * *

 

In the early mid '90s, the Red Room was attempting to slow its decline by consolidating and diversifying its assets.

One asset in particular was resistant to diversification, by his very design: programmed to kill, his memory erased at regular intervals. Interrogation was a disaster; he required so much supervision and instruction to torture someone instead of killing them that all intimidation value was lost. Spying was right out; the asset was programmed _not_ to act like a person, and sported a cybernetic arm that made noise whenever he moved. Instructing other assassins was his last chance.

"Here are twelve little girls," they told the asset. "Teach them to break a man's neck with their thighs. Here are a hundred prisoners for them to practice on."

The asset said, " _Da_." That's what the asset said.

Six months later, the little girls were in the habit of telling the asset his nicknames for them whenever he got wiped, and he had a desperate, cobbled-together plan for escaping with them. The plan failed, the girls were wiped, and the asset was wiped and frozen and sold to the Americans.

It was not even the strangest turn in Bucky's life to be having afternoon tea with his favorite of those little girls, now all grown up and moonlighting as an assistant to the CEO of Stark Industries.

"'Natalie Rushman' really did model in Tokyo a bit," Natasha said, whisking and pouring for Miss Potts, then for Bucky, then for herself. "I learned a white tourist version of a tea ceremony there, but this isn't even that; it's just a way to make really good tea."

Miss Potts took a sip and smiled sweetly. "I love the popcorn kind. Thank you, Natasha."

Bucky tried his. "Holy cow, it really does taste like popcorn." Until Miss Potts spoke, he'd thought the smell was a particularly inexplicable misfire from his arm.

The tea was green and nutty instead of black and astringent, and the snacks were honey-sesame crackers instead of scones with hard little currants, but Bucky found that the chitchat had the same feel as when his Ma used to hold court with the neighbors in her little kitchen. And holding court really was the right term; Natasha flitted elegantly around Miss Potts, who accepted her attentions with serenity, as if they were her due. Bucky had seen them at work in public before, striding around in tandem with Natasha a half-step behind Miss Potts' shoulder, like a knight behind a queen. Apparently it wasn’t just for show, but also something that pleased the both of them.

After exchanging the appropriate amount of small talk, Miss Potts said, "This is so nice. You really should come by more often, James."

Oh, she was good. "Meaning, what brings me here today?"

"Not that I don't enjoy the company! I only know one other man with such nice manners. But, yes." She looked like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. She could literally breathe fire.

"I wanted to talk to you about something by myself, while Steve was out." Bucky swirled the flecked remains of his tea. "What would it take, to make me legally a person again? Myself, ideally."

"Oh, James," Miss Potts said softly, "we took care of that before Steve and Sam even went to look for you." She got up, and Natasha started clearing away the tea service. "JARVIS, will you expose the safe, please?" A previously-featureless section of wall slid aside to reveal a safe. Miss Potts opened it, rifled through the contents, and came out with an envelope. She emptied it onto the table: driver's license, passport, birth certificate, Social Security number, bank and credit cards. Miss Potts flicked at these last with a manicured nail. "You should know, your back pay adds up to - um, quite a bit."

Bucky picked up the driver's license. They used an old photograph - his hair was short - but they dug up one in which he was frowning (Steve was probably doing something stupid off-camera). It looked as bad as he gathered driver's license photos were supposed to look. The image swam suddenly, and he blinked hard. "This is - wow. This is a lot." He tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

Natasha said, "This was done very quietly. If you choose to uncover your arm and face when you fight, we'll eventually have to do some PR, but not much. My career was far splashier and better documented, and I never saw a day inside a cell. Everyone you know of with substantial information on you is dead, yes?"

Bucky nodded.

"And anyone left either has bigger fish to fry, or is a small fish and will _get_ fried." Miss Potts winked at him with an eye briefly glinting orange. "Literally, if necessary."

"Thank you, Miss Potts." Bucky rasped.

She frowned minutely. "Please, call me Pepper."

" _Thank you_ , Pepper."

Mollified, Miss Potts - Pepper - spread her hands. "I spend most of my time throwing around vast amounts of money and power, without really getting to see what it accomplishes. Doing a favor like this is a genuine pleasure." Bucky clasped her hands wordlessly, and she said, "Oh, come here," stepped around the table, and wrapped him briefly in a skinny, fierce hug.

"I don't really do hugs," Natasha informed him once he was released.

"You never did," Bucky replied. She had been a self-possessed and serious child, showing her favor with her regard rather than with affection. Natalia. Spiderling. She carried herself more easily as an adult, with a dry, veiled humor in her expression. He was absurdly proud of her, given how little effect he really had on her life.

As she showed him out, Natasha asked, "Not that it isn't a good sign to want your name back, but why now? What are you up to that you want your original government ID?"

"I heard a phrase the other day that I liked: I want this because of reasons."

"It's so sad when old people try to use new slang."

* * *

 

Bucky got a text from Steve: _shawarma palace 1700_ , and an address.

"We came here right after the battle with the Chitauri," Steve told him when he arrived.

"Indeed!" boomed Thor. "The noble proprietors continued to feed the hungry in the midst of chaos and destruction! Such valor must be rewarded with our continued patronage!"

"Also we should keep coming here because the food is really good," said Miss Lewis with her mouth full.

The noble proprietors were only too happy to bring them whole platters of spicy meat, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, warm, soft pitas, and cold yogurt-based sauce. Bucky tried one bite, and on the spot nearly broke his rule for new foods of waiting a few minutes to make sure he wouldn't get sick.

Surreptitiously he texted JARVIS: _anything new in shawarma?_

JARVIS replied: _No, sir. All ingredients are logged as safe._

Bucky finished his first wrap in three bites and quickly assembled another. Green tea and sesame crackers were all very well, but he had a figure to maintain. Steve and Thor ate with the same gusto. Miss Lewis started out strong, but rapidly lost steam. The tiny Dr. Foster watched them all with appalled fascination, nibbling at half of one wrap, the other half encased in foil to take home.

“Oh, hey, Steve,” said Bucky, three wraps in. “One of the civilians from that incident two weeks ago showed up at group today.”

“Oh, good,” Steve said. “They doing okay?”

“Well, she’s drinking the diner’s coffee black.” Steve winced. “But she’s showing up at least.”

“That was the slime mold exposed to Convergence energy, wasn’t it?” said Dr. Foster.

“Exposed to something, all right. It wouldn’t let those people go until we killed it with fire.” Steve sounded like he was trying hard to feel regret about having to put down a thing that couldn’t help being the way it was, but was mostly feeling relief about killing it with fire. Or maybe that was Bucky that felt that way.

“Oh, would you look at that! I’m full.” Miss Lewis pushed her plate away. She'd gone pale at the first mention of slime molds.

“I, too, am most satisfied,” declared Thor.

Steve and Bucky finished the wraps in their hands and allowed that they were also good to go. The remaining shawarma was packed up; they would put it in the fridge on the common floor, and it would vanish as utterly as if it, too, had fallen into a portal.

“Not everything that goes through those portals turns evil, though, right?” Miss Lewis worried. “My boo Ian’s curating most of the objects that fell out in London.”

“I don’t think so, Darcy,” said Dr. Foster. She reached into her bag and pulled out a glittering silver block. “This came through, and it’s just an Asgardian toy. Ian sent it to me today. Look!”

“Jane,” said Thor nervously, “that’s not-” Dr. Foster tossed the block into the air, and it split into a hovering cloud of smaller blocks.

“It stays like that for about thirty seconds, and then it comes down again.” The cloud was up for about ten seconds before it started to make a humming noise and glow blue. Dr. Foster frowned. “That’s never happened before.”

“That is no toy.” Thor held out his hand the way he did when he was calling Mjolnir.

Steve shouted, “Everybody clear the area!” Most of the people on the street listened to him, running screaming for cover.

Bucky was already backing into Dr. Foster and Miss Lewis, pushing them behind him and drawing Lili, his pistol, from the holster at the small of his back under his shirts. He cursed and ran forward again when he realized the cloud was following him, playing beams of light over his arm.

“Bucky! What are you doing?” Steve yelled.

“It’s locked onto me. Stay back!”

“Like hell!” Steve ran up to him and planted his feet beside Bucky.

“You don’t have your shield!” The blue glow from the blocks was expanding into a flat disc: a portal.

“If it was the other way around, Bucky, exactly how many fucks would you give?”

Bucky said, anguished, “Zero. Zero fucks.”

“Well, there you go.”

“I, however, give _many_ fucks,” said Thor. Mjolnir thudded into his hand and he raised it in the direction of the portal. The wind picked up around them as he prepared to call the lightning. Bucky raised Lili to a firing position.

The portal seemed to - firm up, and suddenly a huge gush of water poured through. It wasn’t directly overhead, but Bucky and Steve still got some of the spray. It was as salty as the sea, but with a terrible bitter note. Those few intrepid souls who were still filming everything on their phones broke and ran, their footage likely ruined.

When the deluge stopped, there was a creature crouched on the sidewalk. It resembled a lobster, if lobsters were nine feet long and navy blue. Dr. Foster gasped. Miss Lewis gagged.

“Gyahhh,” said Bucky.

“What the _hell_ ,” said Steve.

“As I live and breathe,” said Thor, “A -” he made an indecipherable series of tongue clicks.

The lobster reared up its head and bobbed its antennae. It raised up claws the size of their torsos in a clear threat display.

“Do not allow it to approach!” Thor said, pointing Mjolnir at it.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Bucky said. He didn’t fancy losing another limb, or being sliced in half like a sausage. He leveled Lili straight between the thing’s - eyestalks.

It wobbled what was probably an eye toward Bucky as if looking at his metal hand, then turned it in the general direction of his face. Bucky glared his most poisonous glare and peeled his lips back to expose his clenched teeth.

It snapped one claw - the left one - four times in a row, and then - waved? Was it waving?

It was also raising itself up on its dozens of horrible little jointed feet, and, oh Jesus, the entire pale underside was covered in what were clearly constructed objects, regular in shape and irregular in spacing, attached somehow to the carapace. If they were all weapons, the lobster-thing was loaded for bear. The devices closer to the fan-shaped tail were heavy on blinking lights, and the lights were blinking faster and faster.

“Stand back, James,” Thor warned. The air began to smell of ozone. Bucky held Lili steady and edged away. Steve gave only as much ground as Bucky did.

Bucky had a sort of gibbering moment when the lobster started to levitate, and then it snapped its tail hard into a curl under its belly and shot backward through the portal, trailing the cloud of little blocks like the tail of a comet. A single bolt of lightning crackled through the exact point where the portal vanished. 

The only evidence the whole thing happened was the drenched street and the temporary lack of people.

"What the _hell_." Bucky sat down, hard; it was that or fall over.

"That's what I said." Steve sounded as dazed as Bucky felt, shaky with a massive adrenaline surge and no follow-through.

"That. Was. Awesome!" said Dr. Foster. She grunted when Miss Lewis elbowed her, then said, "I mean, awful. Awful is what I meant to say."

Bucky blinked and looked at Thor. "You. You knew what that thing was."

Thor looked grim. "Only just. That is the second one I have seen in my life - in my _entire_ life," he said meaningfully. "We know too little about them to surmise how they would have been affected by the Convergence. That they apparently have portal devices nearly doubles my knowledge."

"Oh my God, my intern/boyfriend!" gasped Miss Lewis, whipping out her phone. "I have to tell him not to play with any of the stuff he's collecting!"

"You know, it's very poor form to date your intern, Darcy." Dr. Foster observed.

"It's also poor form to get dates by running people over with your van, _Jane_ , and yet here we are!"

"I'm thinking we should get this alien seawater rinsed off," Steve said to Bucky. He boosted Bucky to his feet and they staggered away.

* * *

 

The Tower was actually within walking distance of Shawarma Palace, and had proper decontamination facilities where they got the ammonia-stinking brine off their skin, and turned their clothes and Bucky's weapons over to JARVIS.

They were just shrugging into the spare clothes they kept down in the locker room (knives worn next to the skin counted as clothes in Bucky's book) when there was a diffident knock on the door.

"We're decent!" called Steve.

"Sorta," muttered Bucky on reflex. He was thinking hard about dragging Steve upstairs for some holy-shit-we-almost-died sex, and he knew Steve knew it.

Bruce walked in. "I heard you guys had a close encounter," he said, casually, but he had the same gleam in his eye Dr. Foster did and Tony would. "You want to walk and talk about it?"

"Not much to talk about," Bucky said shortly. "Giant, levitating lobster got dumped out a portal, jumped back in again, took the portal thingie with it. Typical Tuesday."

"Apparently the 'portal thingie' responded to your arm?"

"Maybe that was the first appropriate power source it got triggered next to," Steve suggested.

"You realize that is the most boring possible explanation."

"Look, boring or not, it's over and done with. Can we drop this?" Bucky said desperately.

Bruce visibly forced himself to relax; it was a neat trick. "Okay. Walk with me anyway; I'm feeling a little green, and I could use some air."

Steve looked at Bucky. "Dinner was almost two hours ago. Truck supper?"

"Sounds good."

"God bless the hobbit meal plan," Bruce said as they set out.

"It was a joke in that movie, but it works really well for us," said Bucky. Steve's mood was generally more buoyant and resilient since he started eating at the same times as Bucky in a show of support. He didn't know if Steve had noticed; he used to get low blood sugar before the serum, too, so it would have felt normal after.

"That's a true fact," said Steve. Maybe he had noticed.

"With your metabolisms, that makes sense," Bruce observed. "I'm glad my suggestion worked out for you, James."

"Yeah, me too." Bucky kicked at the ground, then said, "You wanna talk about what's got you feeling green?"

"Not really, no. Just needed to get out of my head for a while." Bucky wondered whether it had anything to do with Tony tracking down Dr. Ross, but had the sense not to pry.

They made their way to the streets where food trucks were abundant. Bruce, who had not just traveled to but _lived_ in more parts of the world than the rest of the team, was an excellent guide in choosing from the dizzying array of unfamiliar cuisine. Bucky wound up carrying a huge plastic bag of fruit tossed with lime juice, chili powder and salt, alternating handfuls of that with samosas from the giant box Steve was carrying.

"Ooh! Churros!" Bruce scurried to another vendor just as they ran out of fruit salad and samosas. Churros turned out to be long pieces of fried dough, crunchy on the outside and sort of pasty on the inside. They were good on their own, and then Bruce handed Bucky a little cup of a smooth, pale brown sauce to dip them in. It looked sort of like caramel, but - not. It was strangely familiar. Bucky dipped up a glob with a churro and gave it a taste.

"Oh my gosh," he said. "Steve. _Steve_. It's the stuff, Steve."

"What do you mean, the stuff?" Steve tried a fingerful. His eyes got as big as saucers. " _Oh_. The _stuff_."

"You've had dulce de leche before?" asked Bruce, churro tucked into his cheeks until they bulged like a hamster's.

"Once, yeah, in France," said Steve. "Dernier called it, um, milk jam."

" _Confiture de lait_ , yeah. That's pretty much its name in Spanish, too."

"We found a whole case of it, one time," Bucky said, reminiscing, "ate it on bread until we just about made ourselves sick. And..." he waggled his eyebrows at Steve.

"And what?" asked Bruce.

"And we forgot about it until just now," said Steve hurriedly, blushing, "so how great is it to find it again and learn its right name, huh? Excuse me, sir!" He turned to the churros vendor. "Will you sell us an entire jar of this?"

* * *

 

"You've lost what little haggling skill you ever had, Rogers." Bucky set the jar on the counter. "This is probably now the most expensive dulce de leche in New York."

"I can't be held responsible," Steve protested, laughing, "you were seducing me, with your - face."

"My face," Bucky repeated, pulling Steve to him by his shirt.

"It's a very important face," Steve breathed, bumping Bucky's nose with his own. "The most important." He wound his arms behind Bucky's neck and sealed their lips together, tongue sliding in to stroke against Bucky's. Bucky groaned and leaned into the embrace, clutching at Steve's waist, sucking on Steve's tongue.

Steve pulled his tongue back to suck on Bucky's lower lip, grazing it with his teeth and then releasing it with a soft, wet smack. He rested his forehead against Bucky's. Both of them were already starting to breathe faster, but when Steve spoke it was in that deep, resonant tone he had when he was speaking an absolute truth. The power in it always made Bucky break out in goosebumps. He said:

"I had enough years without your face, Buck. I don't want any more. Your end is my end, you hear me?"

Bucky breathed out like he'd been punched. "Jesus, Steve."

"I _said_ , do you _hear_ me?" Steve's eyes were locked on Bucky's. It was like looking into the heart of a star: the blazing soul of Steve Rogers.

"Fuck. Yes, I fuckin' hear you. It's exactly the same for me."

"So no more stunts like you tried to pull today." Steve quirked up one corner of his mouth. "If you die before me I will _fucking_ kill you."

"Likewise. Guess we'd best make sure we go out together, then."

"Guess so."

Bucky drove the next kiss, trying to steer them back to sex before the moment fractured under the weight of its own deadly seriousness. He shifted his hands from Steve's waist to his ass, massaging his cheeks and digging into his crack as much as he could over Steve's jeans. He ground their crotches together and rumbled his approval when he felt Steve swell and harden against him.

He got in a nicely-coordinated roll of their hips and a firm butt-squeeze, then Steve jerked and broke the kiss again. "Bucky," he panted, "when we thought that thing was maybe going to blow, did you have any regrets?"

"A couple. I ain't never tried sushi yet."

"I just had one." Steve's eyes were still lit up, but now it was a warm and playful look. His face turned bright pink, but he held Bucky's gaze as he said, "I never got to have your metal fist in my ass."

" _Shit_!" Bucky's jaw dropped, and he snatched said metal fist back to clutch at his own dick in a frantic bid to avoid coming in his pants.

Steve's bravado ran out, and he hid his hot face against Bucky's neck as he asked, "That mean you like the idea?"

"Baby, I'm about to have a coronary over here just thinking about it."

"Can - can we do it now?" Steve's voice was down to a mumble, but his cock was rock-hard where he was still pressed against Bucky.

Bucky rubbed Steve's side. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, babe. C'mon." He tugged Steve up the stairs and into the bathroom.

"We just showered before supper, Bucky."

Bucky rifled through the medicine cabinet that could just about double as a supply room for a very small hospital, and came out with an open-ended plastic bag and a length of tubing.

Steve, the nurse's son, grimaced. "Aw, really?"

"Really. I don't mind cleaning lube out of the grooves in this thing," Bucky shook out his left wrist, "but I'd rather not have to clean anything else." He looked Steve in the eye. "You want this, you gotta listen to me."

Steve sighed. "Where do you want me?" He was already undoing his pants.

"Sitting on the can, I guess." He filled the bag up with warm water, and slicked the end of the tubing with the lube they kept in the shower, then stood next to Steve and handed the end to him.

Steve tucked it inside himself with a frown. "Okay, ready whenever."

Bucky opened the clamp on the tubing and watched the water level in the bag drop steadily, keeping one hand on Steve's shoulder.

"Ugh, that feels so weird," Steve complained, butting his head into Bucky's hip.

"I know, baby, I know. You've almost got all of it already, you're doing so good. There." The bag emptied, and Bucky tugged the tubing away and bundled the whole kit into the sink. He hunkered down beside Steve and gently rubbed his belly.

"Sloshing," Steve muttered, "not sexy."

"Eyes on the prize, love. You're getting clean for me, ready to take this," he drummed his metal fingers on Steve's hip. "Does it feel heavy? Full?"

"Yeah," Steve admitted.

"Just think how much fuller you're gonna be, with all this up in you." He raised his metal hand and stroked Steve's cheek, and Steve leaned into his palm. Bucky could see his reactions were getting all confused: unable to stay aroused in the admittedly unsexy situation, but his body's response to being filled ran too deep to be entirely countered. His needy boy. He kissed Steve's temple. "You're so good for me," he whispered, "always so good."

"This is about to be so gross," Steve grumbled. "Please get out for this part."

"Okay." Bucky got out, shutting the bathroom door behind him. He went back downstairs and fetched the dulce de leche, laid it out beside the lube and a half-dozen of the hardest-working sex towels in America, and dimmed the lights halfway.

There was a flush, and the sound of the faucet running, and then Steve emerged. "Not a turn-on," he said shortly.

Bucky went to him and rubbed his shoulders. "Not for me either, but I love that you did it for me, just because I asked." He kissed Steve until Steve kissed him back, then drew him down to the bed, pulling off Steve's shirt as he went. "Now c'mere, sweetheart, I got a treat for you." He shoved Steve gently onto his back and straddled his waist, dipped up a fingerful of dulce de leche and held it to Steve's lips. Steve licked it off and his eyelashes fluttered.

"God, that stuff is so good," he said.

Bucky kissed it off Steve's lips. It _was_ good: milky-sweet caramel, thick and rich, and for the two of them it was laden with memory of a stolen moment of indulgence in the middle of a war. Bucky exulted in the realization that their time together no longer felt stolen, that he could imagine them glutting themselves on each other to their hearts' content.

He sat up, and carefully tipped the jar to drizzle a thin line of sauce onto Steve's chest. "It's sweet, but not as sweet as you, doll." He drew squiggles and loops connecting Steve's nipples, then leaned down and licked him clean, paying special attention to the sensitive pink nubbins. When Steve was shining with spit and his nipples were hard points, he went back up to Steve's mouth and shared the taste with him again. Steve moaned quietly into his mouth, and Bucky grinned against his lips.

He dripped more generously on Steve's clenching abdominal muscles, and had to lick hard to avoid tickling him too much. Even so, Steve squirmed and giggled until Bucky scraped his teeth against the jut of Steve's hipbone, at which point he gasped and shuddered. Steve's cock, peeking over the waistband of his pants, bumped into Bucky's chin.

"Well, hello there, big boy."

"Buckyyy," Steve groaned. His tolerance for cheesy one-liners was much lower than Bucky's. That would be why Bucky used so many on him.

"Hey, if the shoe fits," Bucky retorted, opening Steve's pants and tugging them off. His mouth watered at the sight of Steve's hardon, so big and thick. "God, look at you, darlin'. I ain't got the words."

Steve blushed. "You should get naked too. Wanna see you."

"That's fair," Bucky allowed, hopping off the bed and stripping in getting-naked-for-Steve-Rogers time. He was surprised his pants didn't break the sound barrier sailing through the air. His knives in their sheaths thumped to the floor in their usual spot by the dresser.

Steve's cock twitched as he looked at Bucky. Bucky preened inwardly as he crawled back onto the bed. He rolled and flexed more than necessary as he moved, letting Steve see the bulk of muscle and modest layer of fat Bucky had never before in his life had enough food and gym time to sustain. By the time he was parked between Steve's spread legs with the lube close at hand, Steve's pupils were blown.

"How do you wanna go off first, baby?" He brushed Steve's cock with the back of his hand. "You want my mouth, or do you want my _mouth_?"

Steve's blush advanced prettily down his chest. "...your tongue..." he said, barely audible.

"Can do." He moved Steve's legs up and out, until Steve was holding them against his own chest with a hand behind each knee. Bucky's heart pounded. "Oh, baby, you're so open like this. I can see your pretty pink hole, all squeaky-clean." He shoved a pillow under Steve's hips to help him hold the exposed, vulnerable position, then got down on his elbows to lick a hot stripe up Steve's crack. The taste of all that clean skin had him moaning and jerking his hips.

"Bucky, please," Steve whined, "in me." He cried out softly when Bucky gave him what he asked for, wet tongue jabbing right into him. The muscles of his asshole fluttered around Bucky's tongue, already trying to open for him. He licked and probed until Steve was sopping wet and moaning continuously in his throat, already falling to pieces. Then he brought his hands into play, hastily slopping lube all over his left hand, and then gripping Steve's cock in his right hand and teasing Steve's hole with the tip of his left index finger.

"Bucky!" Steve's ass flexed as he tried to wiggle onto Bucky’s finger.

"Shh, love. We got a long way to go, here. You just relax and enjoy the ride." Bucky licked inside again, and slid his finger in beside his tongue. His head flooded with the smell of peaches as his metal hand brushed up against the pale flesh of Steve’s gorgeous ass.

Steve came instantly. His cock jerked in Bucky's grip, and his ass clenched. Bucky licked him through it, slowly moving his finger in and out. When it was over, Steve flushed and panting, Bucky added another finger. Steve arched, and the first unrestrained, wild moan broke from his throat. Bucky moaned too, spreading his fingers wide and tongue-fucking Steve as deeply as he could reach. When he drew back, he curled up the tip of his tongue and dragged it hard against Steve’s rim. He licked in again, and used the flat of his tongue to lightly press the edge of Steve’s opening into his teeth. He kept a reassuring grip on Steve’s cock, as much to anchor himself as Steve, as he ate lavishly at the softest, sweetest part of all his big, hard boy. The continuing racket of Steve’s yelps and moans were music to Bucky’s ears.

“Bucky, Bucky, _oh_ God, please gimme another one, _please_ ,” and Bucky wasn’t sure if Steve was asking for another finger or another orgasm, but he figured he could make it a twofer. He turned his palm up and tucked his ring finger in with the other two, slammed them deep and jacked hard on Steve’s cock at the same time, and Steve wailed as he came again, his balls drawing up tight. Bucky licked at them soothingly as Steve came down, tension finally starting to seep out of his muscles as he began to relax into the pleasure washing over him.

“ _There_ you go, darlin', now you’re getting into it.” He stroked into Steve’s sweet spot, and Steve just rolled his head from side to side on the pillow and moaned blearily, watching Bucky through slitted eyes. Bucky drew his knees up under himself, flush with the small of Steve’s back, and let go of Steve’s cock to steady himself with a hand on Steve’s chest as he leaned down and licked the two loads of come off his baby’s glistening stomach. The thick, salty taste pulled a groan from somewhere deep in Bucky’s guts, and he just _had_ to twist and grind his three fingers deep in Steve’s ass, feeling Steve’s hard shudder ripple through him.

“Stevie,” he grated, “babydoll, you’re incredible. The way you take it, Jesus Christ. I’m the luckiest sonofabitch alive to be the one giving it to you.”

Steve’s eyes glittered. “Don’t - don’t talk about your Ma that way.” Bucky had no idea what deep well of sass that came from; Steve was half out of his head.

He grinned ferally and stretched up for a kiss, filling Steve’s mouth with his tongue and drinking up Steve’s cry when he pulled his hand out, and pushed back in with his pinky pressed beside the others. He could feel the hard stretch of Steve’s asshole; they’d gone this far before, but not often. “How does it feel, sweetheart? Does it burn, being opened up so wide?”

“Burns, yeah,” Steve said faintly. “S’good, I _want_ it.”

“I know you do, love, I can see it.” He could; Steve was melting, going boneless under Bucky. He still had ahold of his legs, but they remained where Bucky had put them, tucked up and splayed wide, mainly by virtue of gravity and the curled position Bucky was keeping Steve in with his knees, upturned ass in his lap. He moved his four fingers in and out of Steve’s ass, biting his lip at the soft, wet sounds. His own erection was a distant, throbbing ache, less important than giving Steve what he asked for.

“I think you need to go off again before you take any more,” he decided, and set up a rhythm that meant business, pistoning his fingers smoothly, adding a curl-and-twist at the end of each instroke when he was buried to the base of his knuckles. Steve’s half-hearted erection firmed up fast, especially when Bucky stroked him gingerly, careful of how sensitive he must be getting.

Pretty soon Steve was tossing his head fitfully, red mouth falling open and soft little “ah-ah-ah!” noises escaping him as Bucky pushed him into popping off a third time. The volume of come was still impressive, but noticeably reduced compared to the first two, and Steve barely tensed up at all, just a brief bunching of his abdominal muscles. “Yeah, that’s the ticket. You’re so soft around me, slick and wet, so sweet, Stevie. I think you’re ready. You want it? You want my fist, babe?”

“Mmhmm.” Steve’s head lolled, eyes closed, stupidly long lashes brushing his cheeks.

“Open your eyes, doll. Look at me.” Bucky swallowed hard when Steve obeyed; for all the loose pliancy of Steve’s body, that brilliant light was back behind his eyes. He tucked his thumb against his palm, and with breathless care he pushed his whole hand against Steve’s opening. The widest point was really only a little more with his thumb engaged, and there was the briefest catch of Steve’s rim before it _yielded_.

“Oh, God. Oh my God, Stevie, I’m in.” Steve’s silky inner walls clung to him as he slid his hand inside inch by inch. When Steve’s ass closed around his wrist, Steve’s eyes went wide and unseeing as he came a fourth time with no warning at all, a high and wavering cry Bucky had _never_ heard before ringing out in the room.

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve gasped when he could speak again, “Bucky, it’s - it’s so much.”

“It is, I can’t believe you took it all. Gonna make that fist for you now, baby, fill you right up.” Bucky splayed the fingers of his right hand over Steve’s abdomen, rubbing him soothingly as one by one he curled the fingers of his left hand around his thumb. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he could feel the huge intrusion right through Steve’s skin. The least movement sent a cascade of shivers through Steve. When all his fingers were drawn down, he rotated the ball of his fist just slightly, and Steve sobbed. Bucky paused.

“You okay, darlin’?” Steve cried sometimes, when he got fucked just right, so Bucky wasn’t about to panic yet, but he did need to check.

Steve nodded shakily, and whispered, “Full.” His eyes glittered with unshed tears.

“I’ll bet,” Bucky said reverently, looking down at the impossible stretch of Steve’s ass around his wrist, the pink gape of his flesh obscene against the wet metal when he pulled out a fraction of an inch, the suck and give when he pushed back in. “This is the fullest you’ve ever been in your whole life, ain’t it? You’ve got my whole fucking fist inside you, babydoll, took the whole thing right into your hungry little ass.”

Steve keened as Bucky moved, still in the tiniest increments, endlessly cautious of the delicate flesh around the unyielding metal. “My _metal_ fist, can’t believe you asked for that, love, just as bold as you please. Can’t believe you want it, want me.” This flayed honesty was not, _not_ his usual sex-talk, for all that it seemed to be welling up from the same hot, shameless place inside himself; but he was as helpless as ever to hold it back, and it felt right, somehow, not out of place, to be so open to Steve when Steve was literally so open to him. “But look at that, you really, really do.”

Bucky gave his wrist a full quarter-turn. Steve cried out sharply, squeezing his eyes shut as the tears trickled free. “I sort of can’t believe I put it in you,” Bucky continued, hushed, “but we both know there’s nothing I wouldn’t give you, don’t we, baby?” He nudged in the general direction of Steve’s prostate, unable to touch it precisely the way he would with fingertips, but the huge, blunt pressure seemed to do the trick well enough, judging by Steve’s hoarse groan. “Hey, open your eyes again.”

Steve’s eyes opened, wet and red, and Bucky licked his lips. “This is how much I fuckin’ love you, Stevie,” he said, while he gave Steve a few careful thrusts with his arm, short and slow, but firm against his front wall, kneading a fifth orgasm out of him, and Steve craned his neck back and _screamed_. Steve’s cock drooled out a single little blurt of come, and the walls of his ass shivered around Bucky’s hand. Bucky shivered a little himself just witnessing it, as if it was happening to him at the same time. It _was_ happening to him at the same time; this was far and away the hottest thing that had ever happened to him, the completeness of Steve’s trust and surrender and desire, all for Bucky.

He only gave Steve time to heave a few uneven breaths before he started up the rhythm again, gentle but inexorable, sliding his fist back and forth in Steve’s ass while Steve quaked. “One more, sweetheart, I know you got one more in you, gonna give you what you need.” He’d been bracing his right hand on Steve’s stomach, but now he wrapped his fingers again around Steve’s weeping cock, pumping it in time with his fist, giving the head a little twist at the top of each upstroke just as he gave his fist a little turn at the end of each instroke. Bucky pushed and pulled, working Steve’s body as hard as he dared, dragging the pleasure out of him on a chain, until Steve rasped out a long, low, gusty sigh and his cock twitched a sixth time. There was no come at all, just a bead of clear fluid welling up. He’d milked Steve completely dry. He stilled his fist, and gentled his hand on Steve’s cock, releasing it when Steve flinched.

“You did so good, baby, so fuckin’ perfect. Gonna take my hand out now, just hang on.” He went back to rubbing Steve’s belly as he gingerly straightened his fingers again and eased his hand free of Steve’s hole. Steve whimpered when Bucky’s knuckles pulled clear, his reddened opening twitching as if trying to hold onto him as his fingers trailed out. His asshole was gleaming, puffy and sore-looking. Bucky spread his knees and lowered Steve’s ass to the mattress, watching Steve’s legs come to rest with his feet flat on the bed, still splayed open.

“Bucky.” Steve’s voice was wrecked, a cracked whisper. His face was slack, wet with tears and beaded sweat. “Didja come yet?”

“Nah, not yet. Kinda busy.” Free of the awesome responsibility of fisting Steve, though, Bucky’s own long-ignored arousal was roaring to the forefront. He was probably about three strokes from going off like a gunshot.

“Finish in me.”

Bucky’s mouth fell open. “Are you _kidding_ me? After all that!”

“Feels empty; want something to come down on. Won’t hurt, you were so careful. Gimme,” Steve said dreamily, and Bucky mentally threw up his hands, and shuffled back as far as he needed to reposition himself and slide his cock into Steve’s hot, soft, swollen ass.

“Fuuuck,” he groaned, collapsing onto Steve, who was slippery with sweat and come, pink and warm and welcoming all over. He kissed Bucky’s face without raising his head, wrapping his arms feebly around Bucky’s back.

Bucky lasted four strokes, ragged rolls of his hips so shallow they didn’t actually separate their skin at all. He came with his face buried in Steve’s neck, spurting so long and hard in Steve’s ass he actually started to hurt at the end. He maybe cried a tiny bit himself, or at least felt like it.

Steve held onto him, rubbing his thumbs over the spot between his shoulderblades that still got sore and tired sometimes, the assymetrical weight of his arm as well-compensated as it was going to get but not eliminated. Bucky rose and fell with Steve’s breaths. They used to lie like this in reverse, Steve cradled on Bucky’s chest while Bucky kneaded Steve’s poor, twisted, aching back. It had chafed at the greediest, most selfish part of Bucky, that the serum meant Steve didn’t need him anymore. That same dark and hungry thing purred contentedly in him now, well satisfied with the proof of how much Steve still needed him after all.

“What was the other thing?” Steve asked, startling Bucky slightly; he’d thought Steve was falling asleep. Also the question made no sense once he parsed the words.

“What?”

“In the kitchen, I asked you if you had any regrets, and you said you had a couple, and one was that you never tried sushi. What was the other?”

“Oh. It seems kind of - redundant, now.” After what they said - pledged - out there in the kitchen.

“What does?”

“Um. Well.” Bucky felt the spots on his cheeks heat up, and if he wasn’t so completely wrung out he would have squirmed.

“C’mon, spit it out.” There was a smile in Steve’s voice; his curiosity was piqued. Great.

Bucky did not survive seventy years of blood and ice to be a chickenshit. He took a deep breath, and said evenly, “My other regret was that I never asked you to marry me.”

Steve went absolutely still. Bucky lost his nerve and started babbling. “I thought I didn’t have papers, but turns out I do, and it’s legal for two fellas now - or two dames, come to that. I mean, for me it’s been same difference since 1937, but here we are in 2015 and we can, so I just thought I should - check. If you wanted to.” He snapped his mouth shut before he could say anything stupider in his panic.

“Yes.” Steve’s voice was thick. “Yes, I want to, Bucky.”

“I - really?”

“ _Yes_ , you mook. I’d’ve asked months ago but - I dunno, I already ask for so much from you.”

“I _want_ you to ask me, I _love_ that you ask me, you idiot.” Bucky heaved himself up on his elbows so he could see Steve’s face. “But if I gotta do the asking this time, I can do that. Steven Rogers: will you marry me?”

“Of course.” Steve broke into the biggest smile Bucky had ever seen on his face, excepting maybe the day Bucky climbed onto the jet that brought them home to the States. Bucky tried to kiss him, but he was smiling just as hard himself.

**Author's Note:**

> So, if you've been following along, you may have noticed I have a, shall we say, "broad strokes" approach to narrative. This was an exercise in limiting myself to the events of a single day. I think I mostly pulled it off, even if it is 20% fisting by volume. 
> 
> Also, what the FUCK is a smidgen of plot doing in my gratuitous self-indulgent Stucky series? Fuckin' hell, now I have to write giant space lobsters and a wedding. Fuck.


End file.
